Oh for… Diluting the whiskey isn’t the problem people claim it to be. Actually most whiskey open up and reveals the tastes better if a few drops of water is added when served. It’s best if you can get water from the same source as the distillery, but if that isn’t an option then clean water works.

The only real problem with adding ice is that it cools the whiskey making it harder to really taste it. But in the end your personal preferences are what matters.

Want your whiskey on the rocks? Sure go ahead and enjoy it. Want some Coke in your whiskey? Fine, if you like it that way… Actually I’ve had one bottle of whiskey, and yes it was real Scottish whiskey, a well known expensive blend, that tasted so awful I ended up mixing it with Coke just to get rid of it. And I enjoyed it! Now I don’t suggest you go mix a good whiskey before you’ve tasted it. Truth is that most cheap whiskey will go well with Coke.

Whiskey is an acquired taste. I don’t know anyone who didn’t think it was quite awful the first time they tried it, but with some experience you learn to appreciate the taste and how it varies with distilleries, water, peat, malting process and so on. The casks used, how they are prepared, and the aging is also so very important. A blend is always going to taste almost exactly the same no matter when it was produced while a single malt can vary slightly from batch to batch. A vetted malt is a single malt where the brew master has blended different batches to achieve a certain taste. As such it’s much like a single malt, but with less variation in the taste.

All of this is things you can learn to appreciate, but it takes time. But even without learning all about what makes up the tastes you can still enjoy whiskey and if it takes mixing it with Coke then that’s fine too…

I’m more of a Sailor Jerry’s person too but Jameson’s is ok. I got nicely snookered the weekend before St. Patrick’s Day with the help of that stuff (Sailor Jerry and Sobieski helped too). I kept demanding people do shots of Jameson with me and ,lo and behold, people accepted free booze.That was a fun weekend.

“from the sanest person i know” could be taken a couple of different ways. It would “sound a little crazy” even if it came from the sanest person she knows, or, if it where true, then Monica would be the sanest person she knows from the new, revised definition of normalcy and reality. Sort of a intellectual verbal fencing master kind of a thing to say.

BTW, excellent backlighting in the first panel (I assume it is now late afternoon, as Monica has been explaining things for a long time), and the detail on the Jameson bottle and the globe next to Amanda are superb.

I think he changed it. it looked like it could have been either the liquid level or her shirt strap distorted through the glass, but now it looks exactly like the latter. Excellent detail, as I said before…

Just because we’re discussing this single detail: I would expect it to have a bit of angle to it for the strap, also it’s the same color tone all the way through the bottle from the line down. There should be a level parallel of the bottles vertical line to mach the fluid for it to be corrected.

She also didn’t mention the word “golem”. Still, I think that Amanda was relating what Monica told her to what Amanda saw with her own eyes. Also, in that paragraph, Amanda was talking about her new role in things, so it makes sense that she would be talking about the other people’s roles. Since she is summarizing and is probably a bit confused, she’s probably avoiding talking about anything that’s not directly on topic. The fact that Phix knew enough to show up and could enforce a pecking order indicates that Phix at least has supernatural powers.

To me, the intersting thing is that Monica thinks Tina instinctivly knew something about Amanda that caused her to try to push Amanda into the mix. That’s not surprising, but it’s the first time we have seen a character say it.

Oh she’s all smiles and cute and coy in the last panel, but we know the real Monica now. The Monica capable of water torture! It’s all a facade, I tell ya! Don’t be deceived! She’s not to be trus … **poit**

That’s odd, I didn’t know there were fish down there? Must have been pulled in from the lake. Now, as I was saying … Monica is the most wonderful person I know. She’s kind and gentle, and you could trust her with your kids. She’s just the best there is. Always … ALWAYS, believe anything she says!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to shower all this raw sewage off me. Oh bloody hell! Maybe I should’nt have mentioned tha … **poit**

Seriously, though. I was thinking about this the other day. Knowing someone has the ability to suddenly relocate you to say… the sun. That changes how you can interact with them. No matter how you may like/trust them, there is always that knowledge that at any moment, you could suddenly be in the middle of the pacific, thousands of miles from any land, and there isn’t a thing you can do about it.

Personally, I think that reasons like that may be why Monica worked at learning that. Bud incinerated a coffee cup in her kitchen, Jin openly acknowledged that she manipulates people and ‘when annoyed, sends things far away’. Phix is an acknowledged murderer (and possibly homovore). And while Tina is sweet and nice, she too has openly said that she does it for a reason. Even Shelly snuck up on her and stabbed her in the head. Frankly, Monica is very squishy and runs with a very, VERY frightening crowd.
I wonder if that’s part of the reason for her bringing Amanda on. Just to have someone to trust.

All quite true, However, Amanda is now on the inside. That gives her access to information which probably will show how to block anyone from poiting you without your consent. I know that’s what I would spend some time at the paranormal library looking for. Preferably sans Monica. Monica may trust Amanda, but would Amanda trust Monica? Trust a seriously damaged person who has demonstrated the consequences of not utterly believing in her? Well, not in the real world, but this aint the real world.

I don’t think Amanda could get to the main library by herself because she would need to poit to get there. I think the annex was set up for people like her. I suspect that the annex will contain only a subset of what would be at the main library.

I doubt that there is anything Amanda could do. I’m not sure, but I get the impression that magic requires innate abilities in addition to knowledge.

I’m not sure. Is the “annex” just another place to store more books, or is it actually another entrance to the main library for the right people. A way to get there without having to poit to it. Sort of like a cloth portal. More and more people are coming on line who can’t poit so it may be designed for them to use as needed.

I think you just need to be able to visualize it and think of it clearly. Tepoz poited food inside Monica without having been in her stomach, for example. They couldn’t do that with the market, but probably could do it with the sun.

I was thinking that, rather than poiting Amanda there, Monica could just have Bud throw her to the sun, but Amanda is probably too squishy for that to work.

Well, Bud did poit away a tattoo from Shelly. Perhaps when Monica brought Amanda back, she poited her out of her arm band. Poiting the person away from the tattoo instead of the tattoo away from the person.

Amanda’s baptism via Lake Calhoun has successfully initiated her into the Mysteries of the Wapsi Universe! I think the total reorganization of her world view is going to require another bottle of Jameson. Tepoz, stand by for detoxification duty. Love the art, story and characters!

Speaking of poop poit, poiting could be such a boon to surgury. Cesarean births would be eliminated. Cancers could be excised. Depending on the finesse of the poiter surgeon, transplants could be much less intrusive. People can die from punctured colons due to severe constipation brought on by constant use of pain killers, so even the poop poit can be a life saver.

Alan hasn’t met Jin’s Mom AFAWK, there could have been off-screen introductions going on while we were concerned with Officer Buns, or with Bud’s “flying saucer” or any other thing that wasn’t focussed on Jin, Mayahuel, or Alan.

I believe we can rule in Jin’s boyfriend… He was one of the first to know. Remember when she tried drive him away by “stabbing” her wrist, and curled up the knife? And later when she asks him if he gets freaked by having sex with a clay doll? I am sure he has figured it out.

Heather hasn’t. There is also the bartender at their old bar, before they found the Cerberus Club. How about the heiress Shelley works for now, and her tattooed helper? Lisa, I think. They don’t know.

If my calculations are correct, and the tend to be, the winner for the remaining character with the most appearances who has yet to be let in on “crazy” things is…. wait for it…

Jacquline Bontemps

And when was the last time we saw her?
My point is that all the recent major characters and most of the secondary characters are in on the “crazy” so bringing Amanda into the fold was superfluous. Why not explore the “act of acceptance” with one of the “normals” who had already been introduced?
Unfortunately I do not really care about the Jin character; she is nearly at the bottom of my list, so I find it difficult to become engrossed buy attempts to help her.

And again – what is with the drinking? Isn’t it about mid-day? Not like it matters. Monica has an alcohol dependency as was finally established after a lengthy conversation on the old Wapsi forum. It was collectively agreed that she was not yet an alcoholic – which at this point would be just overkill to introduce.